Closing time

Well, here we are.  My blogging has been less-than-meticulous lately, but that's mostly due to a lack of new activities.  My schedule has been packed with all the old favourites that I've started and continued over these last two years, but you reach a point in each where there's not always something new and exciting to say.  I gave a pretty thorough status update in my January reflection video, but before I complete my final CAS reflection I'd like to bring this blog up to date on the new developments that I've faced over the last few months in each of my activities.

Yearbook:  Picture-taking and page editing, ahoy!

The struggles Jess and I are facing this year are the same as I've written about in the past, and with all that experience behind us we're much better equipped to deal with these hardships.  I needed dodgeball results from the student council, and so I buckled down and devoted myself to trying to get them; when they couldn't be found, I made the page work without them.  Drama is a waste of time and energy; that's what I've learnt most through yearbook.  Dig in and get things done instead of becoming overwhelmed by the task ahead; the results will be worth your effort.

Newspaper:  Another month, another issue.
 

The romance edition was published on Valentine's Day, and we're planning a grab-bag final issue to be released at the start of June.  If yearbook has taught me about the importance of hard work, I think what I've learned most through newspaper is the point where one should put perfectionism aside and just go with it.  Yes, my buttons are going to be pushed when the last line of an article get cuts off and yes, a sentence shouldn't be ended with a preposition, but it's important that one does not focus so hard on the trees that they can't see the forest.  It's important to work hard and do your best, but you'll never be content if you accept nothing less than perfection.  Our effort has created a newspaper of which I'm proud to have been a part, and that there is the forest.

Junior Achievement:  Business plan and the home stretch.

There's only a week or so left for Dechameleon, although I'd say it's a busy week ahead.  We've planned a 50%-off closing sale that has generated quite a bit of interest, so if we're lucky, this business will end with a bang, not a whimper.  Junior Achievement was the last CAS activity that I initiated, and I think that it really exemplifies how far I've come over these last two years.  We faced a lot of hurdles - troubles with the marketing department, company members resigning until only three of us remained, cancellations of selling events and production delays, sales difficulties, pretty much every problem conceivable.  In retrospect, I faced more challenges with JA then with any other of my CAS activities, except perhaps the great undertaking that is yearbook.  But I've blogged about Junior Achievement the least, because in the times of these hardships, I don't feel overwhelmed or like they're immense obstacles.  Through CAS I've expanded my horizons and my capabilities.  New challenges?  Bring them on!

I think those three are the main updates I wanted to write before I post my CAS conclusion.  This entire blog is evidence of my growth over the CAS program, but the following entries in particular are those that I think best exemplify the eight CAS learning outcomes:

1.  Increased their awareness of their own strengths and area for growth
Evidence:  Confessions of a seriously out of shape teenager (Write-up, October 8, 2012)

2.  Undertaken new challenges
Evidence:   Letters to the editor (Article/write-up, November 8, 2013)
The eleventh hour (Write-up/pictures, July 23, 2013)

3.  Planned and initiated activities
Evidence:  It's not easy being in charge (Write-up, October 29, 2012)
The end of an era (Write-up/pictures/audio, May 26, 2013)

4.  Worked collaboratively with others
Evidence:  IB victorious (Write-up, December 6, 2012)

5.  Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities
Evidence:  A greener garden (Write-up/pictures, October 18 2013)
21 - 44 (Write-up/pictures, June 29, 2013)

6.  Engaged in issues of global importance
Evidence:  The road so far (Opening speech for Model UN, May 2, 2013)

7.  Considered the ethical implications of their actions
Evidence:  A trip down memory lane, 13:00 - 15:58 (Video reflection, January 29, 2014)

8.  Developed new skills
Evidence:  Easy as E, F, G (Video, August 19, 2013)

While I hadn't necessarily known it when I began my yearbook journey (Happy new yearbook, October 23, 2012), it quickly became a huge part of my high school experience, a two-year endeavour that I have no difficulty calling my major CAS project.  All my posts about this activity can be found using the yearbook search label.

It's so strange to find that my CAS experience is winding down.  I'm beginning to start new projects outside of the framework of CAS -- a literature blog with a one-hundred-book challenge for 2014, a physics enrichment class, a position writing for a Canada-wide student issues site -- and it's odd to not have a yellow sheet to sign or a reflection to write.  Before I started IB, I hadn't thought CAS would affect me much.  I was already the girl involved in way too many extracurriculars; I didn't need a push to get involved.  But over these two years I've found that CAS is so much more than just doing things.  It's about reflecting on what you've done, and using those reflections to improve how you see the world and find solutions in the future.

I might not have any "I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for CAS" memories, but this blog is full of things I wouldn't have realized if it wasn't for CAS.  We learn by doing, but we learn more by reflecting on what we've done.  If I had to choose, I'd say that's the most important lesson I've learned through Creativity, Action, and Service.

A trip down memory lane

After extended, theory of knowledge, and works in translation essays, who has fingers left to type a CAS reflection?  And thus, an idea I stole from Jessica:  reflection à la video.  Although I did start to lose my voice towards the end, so perhaps that's karmic retribution for my attempt to save my fingers from further hardship.

I may have been shirking my blogging duties, but I think this video does a pretty good job summing up this past summer/autumn/winter and my CAS experience over that time.  In case I said it a bit quickly, the url for my Junior Achievement website is crhsja.wix.com/dechameleon.  If you decide to check it out, you'll get to see the adorable logo I mentioned.  Tempting, no?

Raising the roof

Our shed project for Camp Kier is really coming along.  We've had a half-dozen or so build sessions since I've last written, and the shed itself is nearly finished.  The walls are up, the siding is being put in place, and on Thursday, Kathleen, Liam, and I were tackling the roof.  I'm not someone who is afraid of heights per se, but working on that roof sure was an experience.  There were beams in place; our task was to put on the sheets of wood that would make the roof look like an actual roof, and that task consisted of sitting on top of a half-built, nauseatingly steeply-inclined roof while building the rest.  And not always sitting; to get to the low points of the roof, we had to lie down on our stomachs to hammer in those nails.  It was really exciting, to be honest; while sawing wood and measuring lengths had been a necessary part of a project that we were doing for a good cause, working on that roof felt like an experience in itself.  Once the wood sheets on one side of the roof were in, we stapled on a black, tarp-like sheet, and then we attached plastic corners on either side of the roof to which the siding would connect to create that water-tight effect people look for in a shed.  This process involved me shimmying across the beams of the unfinished half of the roof; on this side there were no wooden sheets at all, just the skeleton of rafters.  I haven't brought my camera since the first day, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures to spice up this wall of text, but hopefully I'll be able to snap a few next session or the session after to display our finished product.  We started shingling the roof last day; all that's left is to finish those and the siding, and our little shed will be complete!

Letters to the editor

While I'm still writing for the newspaper this year, I'm also stepping up in the literary world:  not only am I a contributor, but I'm also an editor.  The first issue of For the Love of Reading came out last month, and I edited every article.  To date I've only found one typo that escaped me for the entire eight pages of text, so I guess that can be considered a success.  The newspaper has been getting a lot of compliments this year, so it's nice to think that I've played some part in its good grammar, spelling, and syntax.

My article about Scrivener, a writing program

It takes an IB class to build a shed

A little while back, a kids' camp was vandalized:  fires started in the woods; their shed smashed to pieces; ATV tracks left everywhere, that sort of thing.  Our IB coordinator approached our class with this news, and a group of us decided to participate in building a new shed for the camp.  I'm not a carpenter by any stretch of the imagination - the most I've ever done is build a paper towel dispenser in ninth grade industrial arts class - so it is a pretty neat learning experience.  Our first session saw me, Jessica, Mallory, Sawini, Patrick, Cassy, and Dylan building the foundation and floor of the shed, with the help of Mr. Pierlot and our school's industrial arts teacher, of course.  Sawini and I were in charge of cutting all the beams with a power saw, which was pretty neat, and I also had the opportunity to operate a nail gun and swing a hammer.  I also helped put on the sheets of wood that were to be the floor; they were quite a bit heavier than you'd anticipate.  Additionally, I got to use this cool chalk device:  when you pull the string taut and snap it, a perfectly straight chalk line appears on the flooring.  I also chronicled the experience with my camera (although since I was behind the lens I don't feature in any of the photographs), so here's some snapshots of day one of shed building:

A greener garden

I can't believe it has been so long since I've made a CAS blog update, although September was a pretty hectic month.  I've been working on university and scholarship applications, which has taken up a large portion of my time, not to mention extended essay, CAS, and all the regular IB work and internal assessments.  However, CAS has been going well so far this school year.  I've joined Junior Achievement and the school's Improv Club as two new creativity projects, and I'm continuing on with many of my ongoing activities like yearbook, newspaper, and gardening.  I'll save the rest for another post, but here's an update on what's going on with the school garden.

Since the year began, we've picked back up with watering the garden twice weekly.  It managed well over the summer, all things considered, although our cactus bit the dust.  Last week we stayed after school to work on planting a lot of new plants into the garden, and it's starting to look superb.  Here are some photos from our planting session:

Next on the docket is to paint the front wall of the garden, although the art committee must select the colours and design before we can get to work.  Hopefully they'll get around to doing that soon, and we'll be able to further brighten our green, green garden.

Easy as E, F, G

I'm back from Shad and busy with work and extended essay, but I've also been filling my time with one CAS project in particular:  guitar.  After I got back I was trying to practice every day, although for a week or so there in the middle I was off my game a bit due to extended essay work, but I'm hoping to get back into the rhythm (so to speak) of daily practices.  The online course I was taking before didn't really pan out, as it was during a busy time in school and it just wasn't practical, but my good friend Victoria lent me a beginner Guitar Method book at the end of the school year, and so I've been attempting to work through the exercises in that.  I've made it through the section on E, F, G, three notes on the first string, and over my last few sessions I've started working on notes B, C, D on second string.  I'm nowhere near good, of course, but I'm feeling pretty proud about my progress thus far, even if it's just going from awful to bad.

That was the final exercise in the E, F, G section that I've been working on.  My current focus is the song "Beautiful Brown Eyes" which uses all six of those notes, but that's still a work in progress.  Right now I'm only on page 12 of a 47 page book, so at least for this activity the direction I'm going to take is pretty easy to see.  I'm hoping that with daily practicing I'll be able to play an actual song by the end of the summer, but we'll see how it goes.

The eleventh hour

Only two days remain of Shad Valley.  I can't believe this month has gone by so quickly; summer is almost half over, and soon I'll have to say goodbye to all these incredible people that I have had the amazing opportunity to live with this July.  It'll be a long time before I ever see these people again... everyone is from all over, be it British Columbia or Ontario or Manitoba or Newfoundland.  Here's a graphical representation I did up for monthbook:

So much has happened in such a short period of time; it's hard to put it all to words.  Not to mention the fact that our schedule is always jam-packed full of amazing things -- the only reason I have a moment to type now is because my workshop instructor wasn't feeling well and she dismissed our session early.  In any case, there is so much to talk about!

Our synchrotron experiment changed a bit since my last post.  We ended up deciding to apply lubricants to bike chains, then soak them in nitric acid for a period of a few days to simulate the long term effects of acid rain.  Then we removed the chain pieces from our sample bottles using chopsticks (something that requires a surprising amount of finesse), and placed the chains in mineral oil.  We then prepared samples out of the remaining acid which contained corroded metal to discern which lubricant better protected the chain from the corrosion.  It was a lot of fun, and working with the synchrotron was extraordinary.  More than ever I want to be a researcher; I have never felt more at home than working in that synchrotron lab.

Attaching a sample to the apparatus

In which I prepare the aforementioned samples

The hour-long rec times we have every day have also been a blast.  From kickboxing to zumba to quidditch, I've got to try out so many incredible things that I would never have conceived of otherwise.

Kickboxing!

And then there's our overall project.  My group decided to create heating insoles to keep feet warm during the winter.  Not only are they heated, but they are powered by piezoelectricity, thereby never having to be plugged in or have batteries changed; they merely siphon off waste energy as you walk.  As I wrote for our product's facebook page:

 

Our company is named Lioness (an anagram for insoles -- we're pretty clever), and all and all our project was a lot of fun.  We had some rough patches and disagreements, and we were right down to the wire finishing our business plan and presentation, but everything worked out in the end, to some extent.

The inSol logo, designed by me

Yesterday marked our final product pitches in front of all our fellow Shads, the program staff, and a panel of six judges.  As I mentioned, we hadn't finished preparing our presentation until an hour before, but we managed to not completely embarrass ourselves.  Still, by the time we sat down we were just glad that it was over and we had done it.  We were the second group to present, and after us came four more.  After everyone had presented, our program director announced awards.  There were three -- best prototype, best presentation, and most marketable idea.  We instantly knew we hadn't won any, but we were okay with that.  We'd had fun and tried our best, and we had actually finished!  Then we won best presentation.  I don't think I've ever felt so ecstatic in my life -- none of us had expected it at all.  The judges said they were extremely impressed with how we spoke and answered questions.  I couldn't even remember a word we'd said by that point, I was so overwhelmed.  It was a great way to end of our project experience, that's for sure.

My amazing teammates of Lioness Corporation (and me!)

But Shad is not over yet!  The other groups should be getting back from workshops about now, and there are still a few more days left of amazing experiences to be had.  I wouldn't want to miss a minute of it.

Of the essence

These past ten days have been so incredibly intensely busy, perhaps today most of all, so I suppose it is fitting that it is today that I am going to give up a big chunk of my time to write these words.  So much has happened since my first entry; I don't know quite where to start.  First off, everything is incredible.  The people, the events, the everything.  Maybe a bit more sleep would be nice, but seeing as I choose to wake up every morning at six to shower and read before the 7:30 breakfast, I guess lack of sleep is partially my own fault.

I suppose that going by idea is better than trying to cover the last week and a half chronologically, so I think I should start with our main project.  Every year, all the Shads at all the campuses across Canada work to solve the same problem in small groups.  There are six teams here at USask (I'm on team F).  Our problem:  How might we improve the comfort, efficiency and safety of year round, human-powered transport?  Our group has been off to a bit of a rocky start, and we don't gel as much as our house group, but despite that we're well on our way, and I think things may be looking up (not to jinx it, of course).  We're currently working on three separate ideas under what we decided was our umbrella problem of improving walking:  either piezoelectric shoes, massage insoles, or a commuter encouragement program.  Our team has nine members, so three of us were assigned to research each one and report on our progress at tomorrow's meeting.  I've been working on the third, and I'm actually pretty happy with what I've come up with.  I hope the rest of the group likes my ideas.

Every day we have organized rec from 11:30 to 12:30, and for the first week of the program my legs were in a perpetual state of soreness.  I could barely force myself to walk across campus to the engineering building where our lectures are held, but I'm feeling much better now.  I guess that's what the ringette off-season does to you, but I'm glad to be getting back in shape.  Our rec activities are always something new and fun, be it dodgeball, kickball, ultimate frisbee, a zombie adventure across campus, or basketball.  I forgot just how awesome games like basketball can be, seeing as I haven't played for years, and I'm having a great time experiencing new things and re-experiencing old ones.

Every morning from 8:30 until rec we're at the engineering building for lectures of some kind.  They all revolve around this year's Shad theme of human powered transportation, which is a little disappointing seeing as it's not my favourite field to end all fields, but there are still so many interesting things to learn about.  Our schedule is also dotted with things like workshops and projects, like the marble one I mentioned in my earlier entry.  Over the first few days we worked on this project in our house groups to design an eco-hotel, which was a lot of fun.  We split pretty naturally into a business and an engineering group with no one really having to act as leader, and it was such a remarkable experience.  I wish our main group project went as smoothly as that.  We also made a device to transport an egg 10m without human intervention -- ours was a car of sorts that had a stringed arm with an elastic band attached, and when the elastic was let go the string unraveled and the arm moved forward, propelling the car.  Our design ended up placing second, although that project was in our main groups and wasn't exactly the most phenomenal experience for that reason.  Still, we're beginning to work better together, and I think that despite these rocky starts we are going to end the project and the program strong.

Some of the other workshops I've attended have been one on critical thinking (which involved a lot of debate and was a blast), one on prototype design, and - this is the big one - I managed to get into the workshop to use the synchrotron!  I was so excited, and still am!  Today was the first of our four workshop sessions there, with another tomorrow and a third and forth next week.  Today the ten of us just took a tour, got ID badges done, and learned about what our experiment must entail.  Tomorrow we'll begin preparations, and next Wednesday is our beamtime.  After our official Shad Valley day ended at ten o'clock, we had an informal meeting of the Synchrotron team to discuss our experiment, which we must have fully designed by tomorrow.  It had to involve either bike chain lubricant or bike tires, so what I believe we've decided to go with is to apply a variety of different types of lubricants to chain segments, then use the synchrotron to deduce the amount of iron converted to ferrous oxide, thereby being able to state that the "best" lubricant is the one that caused the least amount of ferrous oxide conversion.  Hopefully all goes as planned; some tensions are obvious amongst those ranks as well, and I can see trouble going down tomorrow if some of the others object.  But even that, and all the homework entailed, isn't enough to get me down.  I don't care what kind of experiment we do -- IT'S AN ACTUAL PARTICLE ACCELERATOR THAT WE ARE ALLOWED TO USE!  I AM ECSTATIC NO MATTER WHAT!

This is the view when you first walk past reception... it's breathtaking.

A few other things have happened as well.  Weekends are still extremely busy, but they're more focused on play than work.  We went "camping" this weekend past (note the quotation marks), which basically meant we stayed in a beautiful wood lodge called Shekinah.  It was wonderful -- there were quite a lot of mosquitoes (they were extremely bad on campus last week, although this one is a bit better), but with a bit of bug spray and some bulky clothes you were fine.  We played lots of card games... there was this one called Jungle Speed which was extremely violent (and extremely fun... basically you have to grab the totem whenever another player flips up a card that matches yours, and the two of you wrestle it out), and another called Set that was pretty great (and I'm not just saying that because for some reason I won every match).  We didn't just stay inside playing cards, either.  Despite the fact that I pictured Saskatchewan as Flatland, Shekinah was in a valley.  A beautiful, beautiful valley.  We climbed to the top of the hill for a picnic snack, and the view was just incredible.

It's already almost midnight curfew and I have to brush my teeth, so I guess that marks the end of today's update.  I'll try to report again when I can, but we'll see how time flies.

The adventure begins

Yesterday morning I woke up much-too-early and began my three-airport odyssey to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I was exhausted by the time I and the other Shads on my plane arrived, but due to the wonders of time zones, it wasn't even noon yet.  Thus began the second part of a long, long day, and despite the fact that all I really wanted to do was collapse in bed and become Rip Van Winkle, it was an amazing time.  First off, we had a photo scavenger hunt around the USask campus.  By the end I could add sore feet to my exhaustion, but I think I have a good feel for the campus thanks to that 3-hour hike.  My team ended up finding all the things on the list; here are some of our photos:

I'm taking this one... what a cool elevator.

We have a rocket in the Shad Cave.

Shads are strong as a raging fire.

Sitting on top of the Engineering E for Excellence

Rocking out in the Shad Pad.

U of S in front of flowers that say U of S.

Right when I'd arrived we'd had lunch, and after the scavenger hunt a group of us watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.  After that, it was dinner, and the food here is amazing.

Yum.

Our next activity was this design project.  Everyone was divided into eleven groups, and each group was tasked to make a 25cm by 25cm by 16cm box with a hole in the top and in the centre of the bottom of one of the sides, with the goal being to delay the passage of a marble from the top hole to the bottom by as much time as possible.  However, one could only use a single sheet of bristol board, a sharpie, a role of masking tape, and work with scissors and a ruler.  We made our box by cutting two slightly larger than 50 by 16 pieces, folding them in half, and then taping them into the sides of a box by folding the excess as tabs.  On the inside, a track ran along the sides of the box, forcing the marble to follow down along the perimeter before coming out through the hole in the bottom.  We then made a lid that slanted downwards towards the upper hole, to assure that wherever the marble was placed on the lid, it would end up entering the box.  Afterwards, all eleven boxes were set up on eleven consecutive steps on a staircase, with the bottom hole of each one leading out to the top of the next box.  Out of all the boxes, only two worked without requiring any outside intervention, and ours was one!

My team's is the top one with the squiggle.

After that, we wrote letters to our future selves, and lit candles and made introductions to the group.  I'll admit, by that point I was pretty dead due to it feeling like it was past midnight to me, and so by the time we went back to the Shad Pad to meet with our houses (House 6, represent), I was fairly out of it.  Then this morning I woke up at the tender time of 5:50, because my jetlagged internal clock told me it was almost nine.  Add to that the fact that at 5:50 here it is just as bright outside as it is at home at 9am, and you get a rough first couple of days.  Hopefully I'm not as completely worn out by the end of the day today... it's hard to enjoy the evening activities when you're just hoping they'd end so you can collapse into bed!

All in all, though, today was a blast!  I've met some really cool people so far, and I can't wait to get to know everyone better over the course of the month.  I think this July is going to be one to remember.

21 - 44

This week has been a whirlwind of yearbook.  It seems like it's all I've been doing, all day, every day, mixed up in a sprinkle of work and getting ready for Shad.  Out of the eighty-eight pages in the book, twenty-one I've done completely myself, and I've had a hand in editing forty-four more.  And we're still not done!  The grade 10/11 school pictures still have to be put in once the grade lists are secured, and that's another eleven pages.  There's a few others here and there left to do, but none that I can do myself.  One is the school Athletic Banquet, which Mr. Toms requested to do himself, same with the Confederation City Classic tournament page, and the library monitors/newspaper page.  Then there's the staff pictures, but aside from that, the book is completed.  It's been so much work... most nights I haven't got to sleep before midnight, as I'm up late working on or fixing up pages.  But it's almost done, and all my and the rest of the committee's hard work will soon pay off.  What follows are the proofs of some of the pages I've created:

For the rest, well, you're going to have to buy a yearbook (42$, or 45$ with a signature page).

Now, there's one dilemma that I'd like to mention that I came across when it comes to creating a yearbook.  It's deciding on the pictures.  When I was a little kid, I played soccer every summer, and ringette every winter.  At those younger levels of sports, it was usually just kids' parents who coached.  When it came time to decide captains, the kid whose parent was coach always ended up on that list, but whenever my dad took his turn coaching, he never let me be captain, because he didn't want to play favourites.  I always felt cheated about that; I was one of the better players, and objectively, I probably should have been captain that year.  But anti-favoritism can be just as problematic as favoritism, and in trying to not be biased, often one goes just as far in the opposite direction.  I am long over not getting to be captain of my ringette team when I was eleven, so why I am telling this story?  Well, when it comes to choosing the pictures for the yearbook, the same ethical dilemma exists.  You're inclined to put more pictures of your friends in the yearbook, but that wouldn't be fair.  But often in attempting to not be biased towards your friends, you're biased against them, and then they don't get in the book at all.  And, like as not choosing your daughter as captain because she's your daughter may be just as problematic as making her captain because she's your daughter, so is putting or not putting pictures of your friends in the yearbook because they're your friends.  So that line was something that was in the front of my mind every time I dragged a little picture square over onto the digital page.  All in all, I think my pages ended up being unbiased.  My friends and people I know aren't completely excluded, but their presence isn't any greater than anyone else's.  The fact that it is something one must be conscious of means it can't be 100% perfect, but in the end, I think it is fair for everyone.

So, that's yearbook 2012/2013.  By mid-July the book should be finished completely, although I will be away at Shad Valley by that point.  The books will then be delivered in the fall, and I'll be sure to report in on the finished product.  Until then, get ready for a chronicle of my Shad Valley adventure in Saskatchewan -- coming tomorrow to a blog near you.

Year-end yearbook

I've been extremely busy lately (most recently with my year-end exams, and the week prior I was away in Ontario attending an invitational math seminar) but CAS waits for no man (or girl).  Today marked our last exam, with all the rest of the school having finished yesterday or earlier, and now that school is out of the way, our final yearbook deadlines are fast approaching.  The signature pages were delivered last week, but the book itself still has a lot of work to be done on its pages, especially with regards to recent or upcoming events like Prom and Graduation.  So, even though school is over, I'll be heading back there Friday morning to work on finishing the book along with Jessica, Adrian, and Mr. Toms.  Despite the work ahead, I think things are going along well.  We have pretty much all the pictures we'll need, save for grad, at least to the best of my knowledge, and I think the final product is within our reach.  That said, I don't know if Jess and I are going to be able to take on this commitment again next year.  So many pictures and so much work needs to be done towards the end of the year at the time we'll be writing IB exams, and so we may need to pass on the bulk of the responsibility to another set of grade eleven students.  Additionally, we've been invited to take the role of editors on the school newspaper this coming year, which while being a large commitment for most of the year would allow us to finish prior to exams.  A step down from one commitment and a step up in another might be a good swap for us; the timing fits better, and it lets us try our hand at a different skill set.  Still, nothing is set in stone, and I guess it will all depend on what next September brings.

The end of an era

As was mentioned in my previous entry about the school newspaper, the grade twelves just graduated.  And, as is the tradition amongst IB students in our school, it is the duty of the grade eleven students to buckle down and plan their end-of-CAS banquet.  Leading up to the banquet on Wednesday we organized everything:  food, decorations, set-up... I was on the hosting and electronics committees.  We were all a bit worried about how it would turn out, but somehow some tablecloths, balloons, twinkly lights, and tulips turned the school cafeteria into a wondrous place that was not quite as grungy as the school cafeteria.  Honestly, it ended up looking rather nice.  After we were done with set-up, we went and got pizza, so that was also a perk.  Then we were back to greet people at the door, direct them on where to go, and also take in and out food from the kitchen.  I was only supposed to host, but I ended up helping carrying a lot of the food around as well.

As I mentioned before, I was also in charge of electronics, so during set-up Adrian and I worked to get the projector and sound systems working.  Mostly that entailed using pre-calc textbooks to get the projector at the right angle.  My other job in electronics was to get the music ready, and the soundtrack I made was a combination of graduation-ish songs and scores from musicals, since the 12s were big Les Mis fans.  I figured finding grad music would be quite easy, but I was really surprised about how long it took me to make my 20-song playlist.

CAS Banquet from Lazulia on 8tracks Radio.

I was told we'd be able to hook the iPod directly into the sound system, but as it turned out we only had a CD player to work with, so there was some last-minute CD burning to do.  Aside from that, I'd say things went pretty smoothly.  It's hard to imagine a year from now we'll be in the twelves' place... actually, it's kind of a scary thought.  By that point we'll have applied to universities, written IB exams, chosen programs... it's hard to imagine that a year from now the direction of our lives will be planned out so much more than they are now.  So much will change in a year.

Next year, we'll be the grade twelves, and we'll be sharing our hallway, our classrooms, and our parties with a new set of students.  The fourteen people we've grown to know will be off at university, doing completely new and different things.  And soon enough, we'll be them.

Still, we're not quite there yet.  In the words of one of the stereotypically-cheesy grad songs included on my playlist, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

 

That's a wrap

Since the school paper is run predominately by the Grade 12 IBs who just graduated, the last issue of the year came out this month.  I wrote a piece on upcoming events at the public library, and the issue prior I reviewed Beth Revis's Shades of Earth.  I'll definitely be returning to write for the paper again in the fall, and Jessica and I have been invited to take over as editors.  I kind of want to accept, although I'm also conscious of our other responsibilities, and I want to be careful not to bite off more than I can chew.  I guess it will all depend on what extent we choose to be involved with the yearbook committee next year.  The librarian, Ms. King, did express interest in reverting the newspaper to a literary paper as it was two years ago instead of the all-encompassing work that it has been this year.  A literary paper has a special niche market as there are none others like it locally, and apparently many different institutions wanted copies, something that stopped when it began covering school events.  Jess and I have been writing solely for the literary portion of the paper all the way along, so I would say if we did take on an editorial role, that would likely be the path we would take.  I think it is something I want to do, but I guess I'll just have to play it by ear and see what the state of affairs looks like in September.

Introduction to guitar

I am currently attempting to learn how to play guitar.  Over the last few weeks I've purchased my instrument, a FG700MS Yamaha Acoustic, read up on a few articles, and watched some how-to videos on Youtube to learn the basics and how to play "Smoke on the Water", but today I took a big leap into something more organized:  I've enrolled in a (free) online class put on by a professor at Berklee College of Music.  The six week course actually started last week, so I've spent my afternoon playing catchup.  Last week's assignments don't count for me as I missed the deadline, but I'm doing them anyway for the learning experience.  I watched through the professor's video lessons on the difference between acoustic and electric guitars, the parts of guitars and guitar accessories, and fretboard maps and chord block diagrams.  Some of this information I'd encountered through my flings with Youtube how-to videos, but a lot of it was new and all and all this course is just a great environment for learning.  The last of week one's material was to practice A minor and E major chords and then to answer some questions pertaining to the difference in their sounds, so here's a short video of me working on learning them.

I still have to finish answering the questions (later there will be a peer review session with other students enrolled in the course), and then it will be on to week two!  I really should be studying for my math test tomorrow, but this is much more fun.

Reconsidering the right to protect

Despite having slept for ten hours last night, I am still exhausted from Model UN.  One a.m. bedtimes and six o'clock alarms tend to do that to a person, I guess.

All and all, Model UN was amazing.  I was extremely unsure of what to do in our first session, but seeing everyone else passing notes to the pages, I decided just jumping in and going with it outweighed the risk of messing up.  And it really did.  During the opening speeches, I sent notes to Egypt, South Africa, and the Ukraine, three countries that had stances similar on the issue to mine, and I got replies from all saying they'd like to discuss our positions further during the unmoderated caucus.  I also got a note from Togo, who agreed with Tanzania's stance and was impressed with my opening speech.  When a moderated caucus was motioned for later on, I immediately went over and talked to Ukraine.  While we did share similar views on the employment of peacekeeping troops, she was not interested in aligning herself too strongly with the African nations, so we went our separate ways.  I then met up with South Africa, and our two countries agreed strongly on the issue.

Later on, Ethiopia invited us to join an alliance between her, Egypt, Togo, Russia, China, and Myanmar, which we accepted.  Soon we found our committee polarized between two groups:  the western countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, who believed that the R2P doctrine should entitle them to "help" states suffering conflict by using military force, and the other countries who feared Western intervention.  In the case of Tanzania, both America's war against Iraq in 2003 and the fact that NATO had abused their authorization to invoke R2P in the 2011 situation in Libya to conduct over 7000 airstrikes and arm the civilian rebellion caused a distrust of the motives of Western powers in such conflicts, and a desire to pursue resolutions in which it is regional powers who are providing aid in such situations.

Later on, our group splintered again, with Russia, Sudan, China, and Myanmar splitting off to create their own draft paper based around their desire to never have any outside intervention ever, be it from Western or regional powers.  Our ideas began to take shape, with our alliance headed by Egypt, and Brazil taking the lead on the drafting of our working paper.  Two of the clauses that ended up included in our final resolution were written by me, which also was kind of cool, and I had a hand in the editing and revising process as well.

Within our group, a bloc formed between myself, Ethiopia, Togo, Rwanda, and South Africa, as we as African nations were in a very similar situation and shared the same reservations about the possibility of our interests being ignored when the rest of our alliance attempted to garner the support of other countries.  This fear intensified when it came time to sign on as sponsors, and none of the five of us were allowed a position.  Instead, Brazil and Egypt sponsored, as well as Saudi Arabia, who had just joined on to the working paper.  Why should the five of us, who had been there since the beginning and had no small part in shaping the clauses and preamble of the working paper, be refused sponsorship?  Add to the fact that the three sponsors were male and the five of us were female, and we understandably felt that the situation was a bit unfair.

Despite this and the fact that the three sponsors continually met and discussed the paper behind our backs, we managed to talk our sponsors out of the majority of proposed amendments that did not suit the interests of our countries by using the unspoken suggestion of aligning ourselves with the Western alliance.  At the end of the day, our finished paper was a strong resolution that well reflected the interests of us African countries, and in the final vote it won out over the West's paper.  I spoke more than a few times during moderated caucuses, supporting our paper and pointing out the shortcomings of our opponents', and while my oral graces were by no means extraordinary, I think all in all my performance was supportive of our cause.  Afterwards, our committee had an award ceremony, and I won the category of "Most Enthusiastic."  There's something to be said in trying one's best, I suppose.

I also had a blast hanging out with my friends (including my roommate, Harini-of-jade-plant-fame), and both the car ride there and back was thoroughly enjoyable, despite its length and the fact that we were all exhausted on the return trip.  Supposedly the organizers will be sending our school our passed resolutions sometime in the indiscriminate future, so whenever that event arrives rest assured I will be uploading our magnum opus, as well as any pictures I deem not too horrible to be seen by the human race.

I yield the remainder of my time to the moderator.

The road so far

Tomorrow the rest of the school delegation and I leave for Model UN.  I'm pretty excited; first for the five hour car ride with some of my good friends, and secondly for Model United Nations itself.  I've learned quite a bit about Tanzania over the course of my preparation, and about the issue of R2P, although I'm sure this weekend will be filled with hectic research between sessions to try and learn more about whatever topics my fellow committee members bring to the floor.  In any case, here is what I have written for my two-minute opening speech:

Mr. Moderator, Madame Director, Honourable Delegates, it is my honour to partake in the SOCHUM committee debate regarding the right to protect on behalf of the United Republic of Tanzania.

It is one of the utmost priorities of the URT to both safeguard the sovereignty, integrity, and independence of our nation, while also defending human rights, freedom, democracy, justice, and equality, both within our borders and throughout the world. We attest that the promotion of good neighbourliness, African Unity, and the support of the UN in its endeavour for peace, economic development, and international security are of the greatest importance.

It is critical that the United Nations carefully reconsider its current stance on the issue of the right to protect. In 2009, the URT, and many other honourable delegates, sponsored resolution A/RES/63/308 at the sixty-third session of the United Nations, deciding to continue consideration on the responsibility to protect, and the time for that consideration to turn to action is now.

Since that resolution, the international community's commitment on the right to protect was put to the test with the 2011 situation in Libya, after thousands of civilians were killed and countless more deaths were possible. The decision of the UN Security Council on this matter was to authorize NATO to protect Libyan civilians by any means necessary. In this crisis, NATO armed the rebellion and carried out over 7000 airstrikes, both actions that put the civilian population at risk.

This must not be considered the right to protect; like the US's war against Iraq beginning in 2003, these actions are not condoned by the URT. It is the undeniable duty of the international community to ensure the safety of the peoples of the world, but that safety should be ensured by peaceful means, and with those peoples as the primary priority, not the economic interests of NATO or the West.

The URT is proud to have over a thousand peacekeeping troops serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Lebanon and Sudan, and hundreds more engaged in peacekeeping efforts in the current situation in Syria. The United Republic of Tanzania believes that such peacekeeping efforts are key towards achieving the proper balance of national sovereignty and the protection of human rights on the international scale.

Thank you, I yield the remainder of my time to the Moderator.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about Model UN later in the weekend!

Growing up

Jess has made another video, and I thought that it showcases just how much our plants have grown over the last few days!  That footage was just taken today, so you can catch a glimpse of Harini and I planting some black penny nemophilas that I bought for 1.89$ at Walmart.  Today we were also discussing what we should do for the mural.  Debate got pretty heated:  from what I gathered, there were firm proponents of both Lion King and fish, although I somehow doubt either will end up being the finished product.  I mostly remained uninvolved and spent the lunch hour planting those nemophilas, but it looks like I'll still get a chance to have my say seeing as we have yet to reach a consensus.  I think it will probably be fine no matter what we do, but I don't know... I can't say I'm exactly an advocate of painting the Lion King on the wall of our high school, and I don't really see what fish have to do with a garden.  But I don't have a real emotional investment one way or the other, and I'm sure it will end up looking great.  In other gardening news, under the tutelage of Ms. McBurney I've been learning quite a lot.  Our zinnias and geraniums have been growing alright, but I now realize that's kind of a miracle seeing how many things we did wrong.  Pots should be filled all the way to the brim with dirt to provide air flow and the proper amount of light, soil should be saturated with water before the seeds are planted, much smaller containers should be used for seeds, and the containers should be covered with a plastic bag until germination, just to name a few of our mistakes.  As a group, we've also been overwatering the plants a bit, and while none of mine have been affected, some of Jessica's ended up dying due to oversaturation.  I've tried to keep all that in mind while planting the nemophilas, and I think my level of gardening knowledge has come quite far in such a short amount of time.  Just looking at the photo below makes me cringe now... what was I thinking?

Did I mention that is the wrong type of dirt?

A hundred days

Wow... I'm still kind of shell shocked.  I just finished my very last entry on 750 Words, marking the final day in an unbroken chain of a hundred days, and the final word in immense sea of a hundred thousand words.  Just... well, wow.  My entry today was a goodbye letter of sorts to the site and a reflection on my experience, so maybe I'll just quote a bit of that instead of writing a whole new blog post now.

...This was an amazing experience, and it gave a lot to me.  But now this chapter is over, and it is time for the next page to begin.

You've helped me so much, seven hundred and fifty words.  You got me writing again.  I think my typing is so much better now -- not that it was too shabby before, but I can write seven hundred and fifty words faster now than I could ever have dreamed on day one.  You can tell by how long it took me to get the cheetah badge; before that I had not grown enough.  Every day I was stretched a little bit farther than I was the day before, and now see how far I can reach.

And the choices you've helped me make.  Just writing out my thoughts... helping me put them in order... you made me find the time for that, and it has been invaluable.  Just recently I came into my entry with a jumbled mind and no idea which was the path for me, but by the time I was finished, my knotted thoughts had been put to the page and I could see clearly [...] what I really wanted.  I think, even after I'm long done this challenge, whenever I have a problem I can't fathom out, here is where I'll come to solve it... And when I'm finished, after my thoughts have all been lined up straight and my nerves collected, I'll know what I should do.  And when the new page loads and I see the stats for the day, I'll see the little black icon telling me I have a streak of one.  And down below I'll see I once wrote for a hundred days, and that I once wrote a hundred thousand words, and I will smile, and remember all this time that was and that maybe someday will be again.  I enjoyed this.  I enjoyed it very much.  I feel like I can write so much more; that I can think so much more.  That I can sort out my thoughts; that writing is my sanctuary again.  Or maybe for the first time.  I thought when I began this exercise that I was refinding something I had lost, but maybe that is not true.  I've written more in these past hundred days than I likely ever had before in my life, even in the days where I was newly enamored with words and writing and all its wonders.  No, this was something new.  I was creating a new spark inside myself; setting my feet and fingers down a path untraveled.

...The last page.  I still can't believe it.  A hundred days, a hundred thousand words.  It's just incredible.  Extraordinary.  And I've been going on for so long about an adventure, a journey, an odyssey, but maybe this was my adventure all along.

It wasn't across the Earth.  It was always here, dimensionless, on this simple page of black and white.  But it was a journey through time, from 2012 to here.  A hundred days it took for me to complete it, and have I come full circle, or in a straight line?  Am I far from where I began, a stranger in a brave new world, or has my wanderlust been satiated, and I'm back home, safe in my hobbit hole?

I'm not a big believer of the cyclic school of historical thought, so I hope that it is the former.  I am a different girl than I was a hundred days ago, and a hundred days from now I will be a different girl than I am today.  That's how time works; it's one long and twisting journey, one that never stops until your final day...

Yeah, I know that got pretty hammy.  And I ramble on like that for over three thousand words.  But honestly, I was getting pretty emotional over this; I've been on 750 Words every single day since January 30th, so I guess it just kind of feels like the end of something important.  I'm really glad that I did this activity; there were days that it was my saving grace and days that I felt it was the worst thing in the world, but all in all, it was an amazing experience that helped me improve my writing and typing, engage my creative side, and reflect on all the things that would otherwise just be left jumbled up in my mind.  It's well worth a little bit of ham.

Spring has sprouted

Yesterday we stayed at school after our biology exam to work on the garden, and we got a surprisingly large amount of work done.  The new soil was finally put into the garden, I must have mixed six buckets of fertilizer (3 scoops of powder for 3 gallons of water), and we moved around a bunch of plants that we had been planning on doing for a while.  Linus was moved over a bit, Shrek the cactus was taken out of his pot and actually planted in the garden -- held up by a stylishly rustic stick.  We took Harini out of the greenhouse and planted her in the garden proper; she's looking a lot better, but compared to the vibrant green plants in the garden and the new rich, dark soil, she's looking kind of yellowish.  But she'll perk up, we're sure.  The fertilizer will help, we hope, and we're also going to spray her and the other plants next week, since Adrian and Ms. McBurney fear that they might have scales.  We also took one of the vines back to the greenhouse to cut up, place in water, and attempt to create some new plants.  Speaking of, quite a few of the things we've planted in the greenhouse have begun to sprout!  The fenugreek, the geraniums, the zinnias, the snow peas, the basil, one of the thyme plants, Jessica's black eyed susan... all of them are starting to poke their heads out of the dirt.  The pictures below were taken by Jess a few days ago, but the plants have grown even more since (particularly the fenugreek there on the left).

A pithy title about Nationals

So, here I am.  It's been a long journey to this point, and for a while I wasn't even sure I was going to make it  -- just look at my last post on the subject.  But I'm here, and I'm glad I didn't miss it.  So, how did I get around the trials and tribulations that I brought up last time?  A bit was luck:  seeing as we're in IB and our course runs all year, midterms aren't always that big a deal and we didn't end up having exams in every subject.  In English and History we're just having a work period for ongoing projects that it isn't extremely critical to attend, and in French we have an oral assessment that only lasts around fifteen minutes and cannot be prepared for, so it is not too difficult for me to make it up at a later date.  I am missing a chemistry exam on energetics and a french test, but since it's just the two I feel more confident on my ability to make them up.  My decision was also a compromise; technically, the tournament lasts until Saturday, but I'm returning Thursday evening to make my biology exam and attend math class on Friday.  On one hand, that's still quite difficult as I have to now find time to study while I'm away, but I'd say it is a better option than having to catch up on our new math unit and the biology exam while also doing the chemistry exam, the french test, and my french oral assessment, as well as whatever new material we're covering next week.  In any case, that's all housekeeping.  I suppose I should talk about the tournament.  We arrived on Sunday, and there were some formalities to take care of in the form of accreditation and opening ceremonies.  No games that day, but that was made up for in the days that followed.  Two games on Monday, a game yesterday, two today, two tomorrow... our schedule has been jam packed (although I found some time to make my bio notes after our game last night).  We haven't been doing fantastically well in terms of scores, but that is to be expected at a big tournament like this:  all the other provinces have heaps of players to choose from, and a league of AA teams battle it out all season for a chance to go to Nationals.  Since we have such a small pool of players, we don't have that luxury.  In any case, our first three games were in the opening pool, and we lost them all by the seven goal spread.  After losing in that first bracket, we were bumped down from the medal running into the consolation round.  That may sound like a bad thing, but it means that we're now playing against teams that are more our speed.  Both our games today we played neck and neck with, being tied at half and even leading at some points, but in both we ended up falling apart eventually, losing by five in the first and the full seven in the second.  Our play is improving, though, and I feel optimistic about our game tomorrow.  And what about me, personally?  I think I've been doing alright; I've definitely improved over this year, that's for sure.  In our second game, we scored two goals, and I assisted on both!  Right now I'm completely exhausted and sore all over from so much hard play over the last few days, but I'll get a good sleep and be ready to be up and at them again tomorrow.

Or, you know, I could always just take a snooze on the ice...